


Like a Guilty Thing

by BrosleCub12 (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Canonical Character Death, Friendship, Gen, Grieving, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Stillbirth, Morality, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post-Episode: The Abominable Bride, physical comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 16:02:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7514497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/BrosleCub12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joanna Watson can't sleep. Neither, it seems, can Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Guilty Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this some time ago during a night when I myself couldn't sleep. It's taken a while to gather the courage to put it up; don't want to open a can of worms, but I remain uncomfortable with Sherlock's actions at the end of Series 3, so I guess this was a bit of an outlet for me in that sense. The whole premise of this fic is something of a prequel to a larger fanfic idea I've had in mind for a while, but have had immense trouble with over the last year in terms of shaping it into some semblance. To that end, I would really welcome any feedback. 
> 
> As ever, I do not own Sherlock, it belongs to the BBC. Be warned of the grief factor and the fact that within this piece, some significant losses have been suffered. Also fem-Watson (as ever, given my shameless love of genderswapping in this fandom).

*****

3.05pm.  Jon huffs and stares at the ceiling. She’s supposed to be headed back to work this week – a few careful hours with the surgery, here and there, just enough to keep her busy, keep her sane – and sleep doesn’t seem to happen on those nights where she knows she needs an early start.

Plus, she’s worried about Sherlock.

Now she thinks on it, rising up from her attempted cave of pillows, duvet and numerous books with only a few pages turned at a time – the house is oddly quiet; eerily so. She’s not sure what that means, these days.

She decides to take her laptop through to the lounge and just… write up a blog entry, or do some research – _anything_ to move this mound in her head, the one that’s full of Marcus Morstan – Marcus _Watson,_ the name she gave her husband as his way out – and widowhood and Sherlock.

_Sherlock._

She pulls herself up with only a little difficulty; her body seems to realise that this is a no-sleep night and wanders downstairs with half a mind to put the kettle on. Her body feels stiff, with the strain of the last few weeks; there’s a very slight limp on her ‘bad leg,’ the one that was playing up when she returned from Afghanistan. Her movements down the stairs a little slower, a little… almost crooked. Almost.

Sherlock is sitting, cross-legged on the lounge-floor, by the coffee-table.

‘Oh,’ says Jon, once she’s over the initial, stupid shock of it and stands and watches him. Sherlock doesn’t seem to give an indication that he’s seen her – the lounge is dark and it’s only when Jon  puts on a lamp that he looks around, acknowledging her presence, squinting slightly in the sudden light.

‘Hello.’ He’s in his pyjamas and gown; his hair is rumpled. As though he’s tried to sleep and failed – dismally. Jon knows what that’s like; oh, does she know.

 ‘Hello,’ she says back and is hit suddenly, by the reminder of where she’s seen this before: preparation for her wedding, Sherlock sitting cross-legged on the floor (like a child) while she and Marcus discussed him in the other room.

(She’s starting to wonder if he had actually heard that conversation. She wouldn’t be surprised if he did.

She’s starting to wonder about a lot of things, actually).

‘Are you okay?’ is what comes out of her mouth before she even truly realises that that’s what she wants to say. Sherlock says nothing, head rested on one hand as he looks… somewhere else, with no indication that he realises it’s the middle of the night. That’s not unusual, but… ‘Do you want some tea?’

‘Had a coffee. A while ago. Thanks,’ he adds then, as an afterthought, ‘thankyou.’

Hm. Well. Okay then.

(Once upon a time, when Jon couldn’t sleep, her Dad had come to the rescue with hot chocolate and _one episode of Danger Mouse, Joanna, just one,_ the old VHS tape he had brought for her and Harry on emergency midnight standby, that she would always watch right through long after Harry had fallen asleep).

But now it’s just her and just Sherlock and it’s been three months since Magnussen’s death and two since Marcus Watson’s and one month since… since the day at the hospital, not long after. Which. Which they don’t talk about. They haven’t. Not yet. Not properly. At this point, Jon doesn’t know if they ever will. If she’s up to talking about it yet; if _Sherlock’s_ up to talking about it. She just can’t tell.

She can’t tell anything, right now. She finds herself looking at Sherlock’s chest, wondering if she should have a look at it (loved her husband, loved the fact that he gave her a reason to smile again, but she still looks at her best friend’s chest and still thinks _You prick, Marcus, you stupid, stupid, stupid prick)._

She makes herself tea – pauses and then makes one for Sherlock anyway – picks up both mugs and heads back into the lounge. Sherlock hasn’t moved and Jon is moved, in turn, by how vulnerable he seems like that, one hand supporting his head, scratching at… something, on the coffee-table. Jon places both mugs down – won’t fuss about a coaster because frankly, what’s the bloody point? – before she sits down by his side, counts the seconds it takes for the man to notice her next to him.

‘Hello,’ she says again, when he glances up at her. Up close, he looks terrible (rather like he was after Marcus shot him); pale, but with bloodshot eyes. He’s been distracted for days; if Jon knew better, she would say anxiety or upset.

This Moriarty thing has completely evaded them: they have discovered nothing, despite Sherlock’s assurances to the contrary. Bound to be a bit tetchy about that, really. 

‘Sherlock,’ she says; it’s all she knows how to say. She suspects nightmares, wants to tell him it’s okay to have those, to not have a good night, and it’s only normal in the circumstances, but…

‘I’m not sure,’ he says and he sounds almost tearful. Jon feels her heart plummet just that little bit more, just as it’s been doing every day when she wakes up and remembers that Marcus isn’t here and that her once swollen-belly is now empty.

‘Sherlock,’ she says again with a sigh and because she can’t really think properly right now, can’t think of anything else to do, reaches out and puts a hand to his back. She feels him tense; stiffen, under the touch, under her palm and remembers: of course, there are scars under there. Scars with stories behind them, stories she hasn’t asked after, not yet.

‘Do you want me to give you something?’ she asks and he shakes his head.

‘No. No thankyou. My brain, my body – there’s a bit of an…’ he waves his free hand around and Jon lifts her head in understanding. Intolerance levels. Right.

‘I shot a man,’ Sherlock says then, out of nowhere and Jon feels something constrict in her chest before she nods, once, brief and short, just as it was in the army.  ‘I did that, Jon.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I know.’ She shifts so she’s a little closer to him on the carpet. ‘I know. I was there.’ _For a change,_ her traitorous mind supplies and there it is, there’s the closest to admitting to herself why exactly she can’t sleep. It doesn’t take much, not at all to be taken back there, to Christmas Day; the drug she had been slipped, the waking up to find Sherlock gone. The endless whir of the helicopter that took them to Appledore, in time to see Sherlock do… what he did.

She worries about Sherlock and she worries about them both. Do they deserve such a thing as mercy? Neither of them are spotless – but then no-one is. Magnussen wasn’t. The cabbie wasn’t.

‘You need to get some rest,’ Sherlock says then, without looking at her. ‘You’ve got… surgery hours in the morning, yes?’

Jon nods, half-surprised he remembered something like that; realises it’s a futile effort on his part to stop _this_ spreading, stop it affecting others the way it’s affecting him.

‘You going to bed?’ she asks, already knowing the answer.

‘No,’ Sherlock shakes his head without looking at her, ‘no thanks.’

‘Okay.’ Jon stretches her legs out next to him and reaches for her tea, settles in as he suddenly blinks, looks around at her.

‘You’ve got work.’

‘I’ve had worse, Sherlock.’

‘Jon.’

‘I’ve had worse.’

‘… Okay.’

Jon Watson never got to become a mother but now, for whatever reason, she finds herself reaching out and pushing back Sherlock’s curls on one side. He trembles under the touch, his whole self seeming to stammer and stutter to a halt – as though he’s expecting something different; expecting to be hit? - and Jon can feel something in her quietly snapping; bites down on her lip.

‘Okay,’ is all she says, quietly and carefully, her own way of saying _I’m here_ because there are only so many times you can let someone languish alone in the dark. There comes a point where you have to be there, when your best friend starts to sink. ‘Okay, Sherlock. Okay.’

He is, to put it bluntly, a total _wreck,_ all dark circles and grey skin and she wonders how many times he looked like that – or worse – when he was out there on his own. Out in the world with no-one at his back.

(Had he met anyone? she has often wondered. Had anyone, at all, made an effort to try and go out of their way to help him? Had there been another – another her? Another friend? Another Watson?)

She wonders if she looks like that now. Like sadness (the way she feels every time she looks at him, every time they look at each other across the empty spaces).

‘I’m going to put my arm around you,’ she tells him, even before she’s properly thought about it; pauses a few seconds to make time for a protest, to actually listen – is oddly encouraged when nothing comes. ‘Okay? Tell me to piss off if you need.’

She waits. Sherlock stares at her, across the inches between them, as though he doesn’t quite follow what’s going on. Finally, ever so slowly, Jon reaches for him with her left arm, puts it around his shoulders, right around and shuffles closer so she can pull him close.

He doesn’t resist but he doesn’t _loosen;_ his entire body is tense, stiff, unhappy. Jon presses her lips together, right before she thinks _To hell with this_ and the other arm around him as well, carefully clasping him in an embrace. 

‘Jon.’

‘No, no,’ she instructs gently; wonders if he knows that she’s being selfish; cards one hand carefully through his hair even as she wonders just what the hell she’s doing, if she’s even doing the right thing here. They don’t do this – many women (and men) have openly shared their envy of her living with such a man, but they’ve never done _this,_ him and her, because they just… don’t work that way, at least not – not before, not before the… the fall, anyway. She had returned to London five years ago looking for… _something_ , a life, a job, a way out of where she’d ended up and she’d been lucky enough to find a friend, simple as. A _best_ friend.

‘Jon,’ Sherlock says again and she makes the gentlest sound she can manage; makes every effort she can to just tread softly, softly, doesn’t want to frighten him or make things worse, worse than she suspects things are in his head right now, rubs her hand up and down his forearm, over and over.

‘It’s okay, Sherlock.’

She waits and she watches, little by little, as his body does start to, _finally,_ loosen and he just allows himself to just _lean_ – into her, into her side, right against her. She wonders about asking him when he was last hugged - if he has let himself be held for any long period of time or if he, skittish and energetic as he is, always pulls away, never lets himself be anchored for too long.

She breathes out before she asks her next question. She doesn’t mind being the one to hold Sherlock up for a bit (just as he’s held her up the past two months) but she’s starting to feel a lag in her arms.

‘Do you want to lie down?’

‘Um.’ There is a very pregnant pause. _Pregnant,_ Jon thinks to herself with a stab of sadness and swallows, hard.

‘You don’t have to,’ she murmurs. ‘We can just stay as we are, if you want. We can just sit like this, for a bit.’

Sherlock looks up at her then and they stare at each other. It’s a little strange, but actually at the same time it’s rather, well. It’s all a bit _Oh, hello, how are you?_ An… assurance, almost, in the closeness, the way their eyes meet. A kind of _Yes, I’m here. We’ve lost a lot of other things, not least what remains of our sanity, but I’m here and you’re here. We’re stuck together; sorry about that._

‘Okay,’ he says finally and Jon nods and slowly, carefully, settles backwards and Sherlock follows, lying down by her side on the lounge carpet.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says and it’s a mumble, against her, an almost desperate kind of holding on and Jon purses her lips. Any other time in their lives she’d be glad to hear those two small words from Sherlock, so rare as they are and even more rarely contrite. But what she doesn’t like hearing is what sounds like Sherlock saying sorry for the fact that he believes he’s being weak.

‘You really don’t have to say sorry to me,’ she assures and gets no reply.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,’ Sherlock pipes up eventually, bringing them back to this current position, this particular little situation and Jon gives a very, very sad chuckle, squeezes her eyes shut and presses her face against his hair, just for a moment.

‘Well. It’s what someone does when their best friend needs help.’ Like he’s been helping her, for instance. She eyes the top of his head, trying not to see it as her clinging on to what – who – she still has. ‘It’s all fine. Sherlock,’ she says it again, tries to anchor him, keep him close. He says nothing and neither does she, stares at the ceiling, lets the floor settle against her back, the warmth of Sherlock at her side.  

*

They wake up just past 6, on the floor of the lounge, her arms firmly wound around a man who is curled up next to her. She registers his stillness, his closed eyes, right before she registers the fact that her leg is cramping and hurting like hell.

 _‘Aaargh…’_ she grits her teeth and _snarls_ and the sound is rousing: Sherlock is immediately rolling away and surging to his feet, standing over her.

‘What is it?’ he asks, all high-alert and underneath the sheer bloody pain, something in Jon’s mind registers a feeling of pride at how… almost normal he seems, how Sherlockian. Perhaps she did that. She gestures, tight-lipped, at her leg – it’s her ‘bad one’, bloody typical – and he’s immediately on the case, picking up her foot between his hands.

‘Ready?’ Then he pushes towards her and Jon pushes her leg towards him and they work together, easing off the pain. Jon grits her teeth; it’s a far cry from the other agonies she’s had to endure recently – that they’ve both had to endure – and in many ways it’s reassuringly normal, almost reassuringly _stupid._

(He had gripped her hand at the hospital, so good and tight and he hadn’t let go until it was over, until they had got right to the very end and she was holding that still, too-still bundle in her arms instead, her hands – her whole body – utterly numb).

She lies on the floor afterwards, breathing in, breathing out, staring up at Sherlock as the pain finally abates, nodding a little as she stares up at him, sprawled out on the lounge of 221B in her pyjamas.

 ‘Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for that. Cheers.’ She stretches out her leg on the floor, gives it a little wriggle. Yeah, that’s fine, that’ll do.

‘You’re welcome.’ Sherlock sounds… cautious, even embarrassed and then he reaches down with a hand. Jon grins a little – before she registers the fact that she’s grinning at all, at such a ridiculous wake-up call – and lets him pull her to her feet, steadies herself against him, envies him in a way, for still being able to spring up despite his own injuries.

‘Sorry,’ he adds after a beat.

‘It’s fine,’ she assures him, again. ‘Wasn’t your fault, it was my idea. Getting old,’ she says it with the weakest attempt at a half-smile, one that dies even as it appears, as she looks at his face. ‘Sherlock. It’s all fine.’

Sherlock tilts his head, looks away, mouth tight and Jon stays, just for a moment, with a hand on his arm, looks him over.

‘Get some rest,’ she tells him finally, nodding to the sofa. He stares back at her and on a whim and because it’s a little unnerving, she reaches out and for a second time in just a few hours, pushes some of his hair – messier than it should be, too long – back from his forehead; moves her hand away just as quickly in the face of his stillness at her touch.

She lingers; makes them both tea and leaves a mug and a piece of plain toast for him on the coffee-table, texts Mrs Hudson with instructions to look in on him, leaves him with the simple, unasked for but much needed reassurance that she _will_ be back.

She _will_ try, for him; they’re _both_ going to try, now.

*

 

**Author's Note:**

> A hand that can be clasped no more –  
> Behold me, for I cannot sleep  
> And like a guilty thing I creep  
> At earliest morning to the door.  
> \- In Memorian, A.H.A. Alfred Lord Tennyson


End file.
